Your cofounder and you have been dreaming of starting out on your brand new startup idea. As you divided up the responsibilities, you got to own marketing! Yay. There’s just one problem.
You have never done marketing before.
There are less creepy ways you can use Facebook to understand your audience and help serve them better.
As a user, you’re probably reading a lot today about Cambridge Analytica’s “breach” of Facebook audience data and possibly getting a little scared about sharing too much information. As a marketer (and I put my guesstimate at 50% since you’re reading this), you are probably also thinking to yourself – didn’t Cambridge Analytica simply use Facebook Ads the way it was meant to? The tldr on that is no, they didn’t. But there’s no reason why you can’t use Facebook data to understand your audience in a less-creepy manner. And here’s how.
Algorithms from Facebook, Twitter, and Google have a disproportionate impact on publishers and large corporations alike, how do you protect your company against the impact of an algo gone rogue?
Recently, LittleThings – an online publisher focused on inspirational content targeted at women – announced that Facebook’s latest algorithm shift was going to be fatal for them. While Facebook has been making changes to its newsfeed algorithm consistently over the last few years, no one was prepared for the dramatic consequences of the early-January change.
No previous algorithm update ever came close to this level of decimation.
– Joe Speiser
The reality is that as a platform, Facebook wields more power than it ideally should. Also, can you really blame Facebook for it? It has to run its own business and you have to run yours. Eventually, the company is going to do right by its own users.
Almost 90% of e-commerce stores fail in the first 120 days.
According to Chris Ducker’s blog, 90% of e-commerce ventures fail. That alone is scary enough to prevent enthusiastic entrepreneurs from taking a plunge. That said, it isn’t enough reason to give up on your dreams… as long as you follow these five steps like Commandments.
Digital marketing agencies are a dying breed. If you are one, or you are using one, keep in mind the three things you need to do to ensure you don’t end up dead.
As I see it, digital marketing agencies are not set up for success. Every time I have used a marketing agency myself, it has been a stop-gap arrangement until I could set up my own team.
Marketing agencies are destined to die, and if you rely on one, you’ll die with it.
– Mike Templeton, Foxtail Marketing
There are multiple issues with the way marketing agencies operate today. Not that all marketing agencies are out to screw their clients, they have simply gone and done what ad agencies (and Mad Men) have taught them.
